By store of record they are meaning the source of truth for the interface display: that is to say, the app state exists there, and is reflected in the UI, instead of the app state being scattered around in the dom and in variables here and there.

It’s true that the actual persistent state exists in a DB on the backend. I think the architecture you describe (ie, refreshing from BE upon url navigation) offers something in simplicity, but breaks down when doing ajax-style interactions and websocket work.

The centralized front-end store is a good idea (imo/ime) — the problem is in over-formalizing it (Flux/Redux/ngrx/store/vuex): you loose the very simplicity that was gained in the first place.

Simplicity of state is the chief reason Vue gains traction w/respect to angular and react: the state is just a plain JS object. Update the object, watch the UI update to reflect it.

Peace.